


Undoing

by lizthefangirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Confessions, F/M, POV Bellamy Blake, POV Clarke Griffin, Pining, Some Humor, Speculation, The 100 (TV) Season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 10:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19851226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizthefangirl/pseuds/lizthefangirl
Summary: Post 6.10. In which a drunk Gabriel says too much at a gathering, and Bellamy and Clarke have to face the consequences.





	Undoing

“I’d like to propose a toast.”

The room swiveled towards Clarke’s smiling face. She was mildly surprised to find that most of her friends’ formerly hostile expressions had been replaced by cautious affection. She met their eyes, and found she lingered on Bellamy’s as she said, “To life.” 

“ _To life!_ ” They clamored and clinked glasses off-beat, though Bellamy didn’t drink until she did. 

The alcohol was a necessary reward, they seemed to tell themselves. After Madi’s successful operation (the child was curled up under plush blankets a few rooms down, Gaia volunteering to stay by her bedside after managing to shoo Clarke away), news of Simone’s progress had reached them as well, though there was still much to contend with on that front.

But they chose to willfully ignore all of that for the moment, because there had been something to celebrate.

Gabriel was drinking quite heavily, Octavia frowning at him across the room. Clarke’s gut was limned with a bit of guilt; hard to feel anything like that regarding Josephine, but still. . .

She decided to approach him, trying for a gentle tone. “Hey. I’m sorry again for your. . . loss. Really.” 

His eyes rolled up to her. He barked a laugh. “No need to lie, Clarke. I’m sorry for what she’s cost all of you.” He blinked, threw back some rose-colored ale. 

“Everything okay?” Bellamy’s gruff voice reached her. He wasn’t carrying his glass. She faintly wondered if it was because food and drink made his stomach roil like it did hers, of late.

She smiled. “Yeah. Still conscious.” 

Gabriel snorted, and they turned to him. He swayed slightly as he stood, clamping a hand down on each of their shoulders. His sour breath wafted as he intoned, “Couldn’t have done it for anyone else, I don’t think.” They smiled politely in thanks, though puzzled. “I just mean, y’know. You guys _have it_. You have that—” He withdrew his hands, wriggling his fingers together. “Connection.”

Bellamy cleared his throat, shooting her a concerned look that she immediately understood: _We should probably help him to bed._ At her nod, he said, “We’re very grateful to you. I know it was a hard day—”

“Don’t mention it,” Gabriel crowed, smacking him hard on the arm. Miller and Jackson had turned towards the exclamation. “And hey! Hey, man. . .” His voice was still quite loud, though he seemed convinced he was whispering as he slurred, “It’s not cheating if she’s like, certifiably deceased, right?” He puckered his lips dramatically. 

Clarke didn’t react straight away. Becuase words didn’t really have meaning for a solid two seconds, so she just gawked as he choked on a chuckle. Bellamy had gone a bit green.

“Oh that’s terrible—shit. Sorry, what a thing to say!” He wheezed and cackled, face flushed and sweaty, waving a hand. “Y’know what I mean though, right? Strictly medical.” He dropped a sloppy wink.

Just behind him, Clarke spotted Octavia’s eyes blown impossibly wide. 

Clarke wasn’t sure she understood, but could feel that it wasn’t quite meant as a joke. For whatever reason, though, Bellamy didn’t lash out when Octavia grabbed Gabriel’s sleeve and tugged him smilingly towards the exit.

Only then did it occur to her that the room was silent. She glanced around, baffled and embarrassed—and paused at the sight of Echo, not a meter behind where they stood. She held two drinks—no. Three. One was tucked into her elbow. 

What the hell just happened?

“He’s drunk,” Bellamy began, to no one in particular. “I think he—I mean, I gave her CPR. Because her heart stopped. And that’s what you do when that happens.”

Somewhere to their right, a peal of laughter followed by shattering glass pierced the silence. Murphy was keeled over on a barstool with the force of it, his drink having slipped from his fingers. Emori stared, mortified. She offered an apologetic grin, then kicked him hard in the shin. 

Bellamy was pale, eyes locked with Echo’s. “Gabriel is _drunk_. And he’s in a lot of pain.”

But his partner was setting down the drinks one by one onto an empty table. She just jerked her head towards a doorway and stalked in that direction. 

Clarke approached him, something like panic flaring. “Bellamy. God. . . Bellamy, let me talk to her— “

“Hey, nothing’s wrong,” he told her. “Nothing. We’re good. You should go check on Madi.”

She simply did not believe him, but resigned herself to take his suggestion, noting how his back muscles worked as he sucked in a great breath before starting off after the woman he loved—and unsure how to contend with how empty it left her.

* * *

Somewhere far, far in the catacombs of Bellamy’s mind, in a sort of makeshift vault that had been incinerated at some point in the day’s events, he knew that this moment was a long time coming.

He’d never admit that to anyone. Wouldn’t admit it to himself. He’d fight it, even now. There was no coming back if he didn’t. Too much pain.

He met Echo next to a rather grand staircase. For all she’d opened up to him over the years, she could instantly reassume her granite warrior’s stance. One who asked the questions, and you had better answer truthfully. He faced that Azgeda spy now, and hated it.

So he matched her, as he often did, arms folding over his chest. “You can’t actually take what he said seriously, can you? Cause I’m not." 

Her face revealed nothing.

He’d never been one to wait for her to thaw on her own. It tended to make him say too much. Prime example: “Are you threatened by Clarke?”

“Should I be?”

“ _No_ ,” he strained. “You know how much I care about her. But—" 

“What’s ‘heart and head?’”

This is what she did, and she was brilliant for it. She found the precise words to disarm him and just about anyone else. These were most effective, because he felt himself shutter, almost against his own volition. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“He _was_ drunk,” she panned. “He was trying to figure it out himself. Asked me about it.”

The image was so absurd it was almost funny. “It’s just. . . It’s from before.”

“Which before.”

“Praimfaya.” 

She crooked a brow, prompting.

And he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t explain something so intrinsic to him—to _them_ ; he’d never needed to before. Instead he breathed an incredulous laugh. “It’s just a thing we say.” _Too fidgety_ , he thought coolly.

“Like _together_.”

He flinched. She did know how he cared about Clarke, because he’d told her when she asked on the Ark—a way of remembering her, honoring her memory. But in truth, he’d only offered a fraction. Even in her death, he’d held tight to what they had, selfish and shattered. “Yeah.” 

She cocked her head. “I think I know which one you are.”

“I’d hope so.” He tried for an easy tone, but it was like trying to run through knee-deep mud. “Echo, what do you want me to say? Why are we here?”

She didn’t look upset. Infinitely worse, disappointment crossed her face. “Think on it.” 

He couldn’t do that. “I _am_ thinking,” he lied, his shame heady. “Help me understand.” 

“Fine, Bellamy. Let’s do it like this, then. You can love her. I know you love her. You have good reason to.” She advanced on him, jaw working. “ _But_. You cannot love her first and put me second. And act like it’s not even happening. It’s rotten.”

“Echo.” 

“ _Listen to me._ I know you’re trying to do the right thing, and I love you for it. But you’re right—you are the heart. You always have been. And if she’s your head, it means I’m not. You can’t have two.” She cracked a glum smile. “I think Clarke and Josephine have proven that.”

“You’re wrong,” he whispered. “I have never— _never_ —been unfaithful to you. I swear it.”

“I believe that,” Echo said. “But it took you all this time. To realize it.”

“Realize _what_?” 

“You’ve lived without her happily,” she said thickly. “But only because you had to. You don’t have to anymore.” She closed her eyes, trying to draw some of her earlier steel. But she couldn’t seem to as she said, “I’m not going to let you.”

He couldn’t bear to fully compute what she was telling him. “Stop this,” he begged. 

“It’s already done. It was done when you went into those woods with her and I saw the look in your eyes. Like you’d tear down the universe to save her, again. Bellamy, you had a life with her—on the Ark, after our world burned. If things had been different, if she’d come with us—”

“But she _didn’t_! She didn’t.” 

“And even here. You thought she was dead, and you would’ve moved on _again._ And because you’re a good man, you’re here, still trying to make this work. . . I love you. I love you enough to let you love her freely.”

He shook his head, gasping. “You can’t—this is _twisted_ , Echo.” 

“It’s only twisted if you waste it,” she said sharply. “If you go around moping like a wounded animal, trying to tell yourself you’d rather have me—I will break both of your wrists and then your ankles, Bellamy.” She raised her brows. “Or tell me I’m wrong about all of this. Honestly.”

It would be far from honest _._ He was unraveling, reeling. That told him everything he needed to know.

His face crumpled as the truth caught up to him at last. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“Me too. But I’d be sorrier to see you less happy than you could be. Not that we couldn’t be happy.” She shook her head. “I am grateful for what we’ve had. It was real and it was good. But Bellamy. . . Gabriel saw it too, didn’t he? Isn’t that what he said—that he couldn’t have done it for anyone else?” 

“How do you hear _everything_?”

She took his hands with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not changing my mind. . .” Her brow furrowed. “But they should know it’s over. She should know.”

“No. I mean, yes. But.” He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know what she wants.” 

She narrowed her eyes. Then clasped his wrist, and began back to the room where everyone was gathered. He was sputtering at her the whole time, but she whirled around and kissed him hard on his cheek. “You’re gonna owe me for this.” 

“Are _you_ drunk?” he hissed.

He could only gape when she lunged at some kind of tacky glass sculpture and sent it into a wall with a roar. _“I can’t keep this_ up _, Bellamy!”_

He was suddenly about an inch tall. “Whoa— _whatthehellareyou—?“_

She stumbled past the doorway, so she was in sight of their friends. “We broke up _before we left Earth._ What are we even doing?”

Oh. This was bad.

“Maybe I wanna be with someone else, ever think of that?” she snapped.

He was furiously gesturing for her to _shut up_.

“Just leave me alone,” she spat, only to punch him lightly on the shoulder as she passed. She was grinning wider than he’d ever seen. _You’re up_ , she mouthed.

**Author's Note:**

> I just have...... a feeling about this.
> 
> Leave a comment! Thanks guys.


End file.
